And while some ran their own cars, most were independent contractors who had their expenses paid by their car owner and then split the winnings (that division of money was usually 60-40) with said owner, who paid the bills. It was, but even that wasnt the point. Fox reported a modest 2% increase in viewership of comparable Cup race from 2018 to 2019, but it needs to be noted that Foxs part of the schedule does not collide with NFL and college football, which NASCAR fans also enjoy watching. The cars already were mostly spec at that point, and the sport was doing just finebooming even. Sundays race at Auto Club is also down from the second race of the 2021 season. The Great Recession that swept across the landscape starting in 2008 changed everything. Yes, thats actually true; read it again if you need to. With all the different metrics used to measure a sport these days however, it can be complicated. For instance: The non-stop promotion of Danica Patrick, as if she was the Second Coming (she wasnt), turned off a lot of fans. They got famous because of word-of-mouth (Hey, didja hear about that new kid blowin em away over at Hickory?), weekly newspapers like National Speed Sport News (called simply Speed Sport and whos Editors Notebook by the late Chris Economaki was a Must Read) and magazines like Stock Car Racing. After two DNFs in the first two Chase events resulting from simple bad luck, just like that his title hopes were gone. The fact is, NBC could bring Ken Squier and Gentleman Ned Jarrett back into the booth and call back the late, great Chris Economaki from Heaven to report from pit road, and it would still face the same big hurdle: selling a sport that is losing popularity and has three months of overlap with football. OutKick reported: The NBA ratings are worse I have been around and covered NASCAR for over two decades. It was another case of costly arrogance; as much as fans loved NASCAR, they didnt love it enough to put up with an endlessly saturated marketing campaign featuring occasional snippets of racing each week. The top of the mountain in NASCAR circles back then was known as the Grand National Division but in 1971, the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., then-manufacturer of Winston cigarettes, contracted with NASCAR to become title sponsor and the Winston Cup Series (to be known thereafter as simply Cup, regardless of subsequent sponsorships) was born,. Sundays NASCAR Cup Series race from Las Vegas averaged a 2.6 rating and 4.36 million viewers on FOX, marking the lowest rated edition of the race since it debuted in 1998 and the smallest audience since at least 2001 (viewership prior to 2002 was not available). I think that the momentum is good. Now, they buy their way in. Yes, sports ratings as a whole are down, but NASCAR's fall is alarming: Daytona 500 viewership from 2001 to 2009 ranged from 16 to 19 million. There were often timesand Im not exaggerating thiswhen a viewer would see maybe five laps of racing, a two-minute break, and then just two more laps of racing before another break. Im also someone who became a disenchanted former fan myself. The Fox's coverage of the race won by Michael McDowell on the last lap averaged a 2.8 rating and 4.83 million viewers per Sports Media Watch. This isnt to say that the initial Car of Tomorrow wasnt a disasterit wasbut at the time, fans were plenty vocal about safety after the loss of the sports biggest icon. It would have been nice to have heard more during the championship race from Earnhardt. Bowlesy thinks there needs to be an element of risk for racing to be exciting; I dont tune in to races to see a car potentially fly into a catch fence and injure spectators. Translation: the drivers are paying for the pleasure of racing. Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on VisualHunt.com / CC BY-SA Most notably, Sunday was an all-time low in viewership for the second race of a NASCAR season ever. But in a relatively short time, NASCAR corrected the car and the multiple issues with its design, and while the cars dont differ by manufacturer like they once did, at least were not seeing disastrously awful races just because of the cars construction. Photo credit: Zach Catanzareti Photo on Visualhunt / CC BY-SA News. Photo credit: sidehike on VisualHunt / CC BY-SA The 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season averaged 2.93 million viewers across FOX, FS1, NBC and NBCSN, down 4% from last year (3.06M), down 6% from 2019 (3.11M) and the least-watched season on record. NASCAR finale sees modest gain as season posts modest drop, Ratings: NASCAR, college hoops, soccer, NHL, XFL sees big drop in Week 2, but on par with last years USFL, LeBron injury ill-timed as Lakers continue to draw, Small sampling for LIV; PGA Tour wins head-to-head in rout. Standings. As Ive said, the sport is finally addressing its venue problem. The Truck Series averaged 594,000, up 16% from last year (511K) and 13% from 2019 (549K). If NASCAR wants to fix the ongoing issues with viewership, fixing their way of broadcasting commercials would go a very long way in those efforts. You will find all of your NASCAR ratings coverage at Sportsnaut. And you hear more and more about this today. The sport mishandled the on-track racing by introducing the 550 horsepower package which caused the fanbase to lose trust. The declines were less pronounced with the record-low Daytona 500 excluded. Dale Earnhardt Jr. retired at the end of the 2017 season. It was boxy, ugly, and top heavyand its shape was part of the reason for the Indianapolis debacle of 2008. Where . And while 2020 has been anything but usual especially in the sports world, NASCAR was the one sport that didnt suffer a significant ratings drop. NASCARs TV ratings began to fall; the once all-mighty numbers began to show not an increase, but a decline. Racing is still pretty danged dangerous. IndyCars race at St. Petersberg was also up from 1.219 million viewers last season. These are bold changes, but this variety of tracks will test drivers and teams at every level. NASCAR made an absurd amount of money with their television contracts in the 2000s, but that ultimately cost them a sizable chunk of the audience when networks were forced to make it worth their while. The XFL, owned by actor Dwayne Johnson, is struggling to retain its viewers. NASCAR ratings have been on the decline over the last decade as they have taken a significant drop. From their colorful beginnings to what is now a billion-dollar sporting event, NASCAR has continued to provide high octane entertainment for its millions of fans and supporters. By virtue of his fathers untimely passing, Dale Earnhardt Jr. instantly found himself with a larger fan base than any three drivers in NASCAR. It was the first time in a while where we didn't have a decline on NBC. I was critical of the Chase in plenty of columns, but I felt like I really got the point across with this one about it. When added to metrics from an agency known as Joyce Julius & Associates, which specializes in measurement and analysis of media promotions that showed just how much TV exposure a sponsor was getting, NASCAR teams were able to justify the high cost of the sponsorships they were charging. NBC was slightly ahead of last years pace before the Nov. 10 race at Phoenix, but it drew 2.567 million, the least-watched Cup race on broadcast television since 2001 (not counting rainouts). Kyle Larsons win, which averaged 3.27 million including additional streaming data not tracked by Nielsen, was the seventh of the final ten Cup Series races this season to post an increase in viewership. Bookmark this page for NASCAR ratings as another year of racing is officially underway! Fans might be tired of the novelty of the playoffs. They hate all of the commercials. A Former Reporters Thoughts, fly into a catch fence and injure spectators, I really got the point across with this one, that profoundly irritating cartoon gopher, baseball exploded in popularity after the opening of Camden Yards, that didnt suffer a significant ratings drop, Professional Cornhole Beyond The Parking Lot, Staying Green ex-Patriots Champion Jarvis Green, Terry Kath 1946-1978: The Heart of Chicago. The same race last year attracted 4.154 million viewers, and the 2017 race drew 4.662 million both of which had established respective viewership lows for the 36th and final race of the too-dang-long Cup season. Many fans, especially those who might want to disparage the sport, dont understand that just because the TV numbers are down or not at the sky-high levels they once were, doesnt mean NASCAR is facing any sort of loss of popularity. And that is for the Indianapolis 500 of stock cars. Stats. Overall, NASCAR brought in 114.231 million average viewers throughout the entire 2022 season which marks its. Thirty-five percent of participants said they were now watching less sports due to political and social messaging, whereas only 11 percent said they now watch more. NASCAR did (and still does) market the possibility of spectacular wrecks. Flat is better than down, but 2018 was also the year the once-mighty U.S.S. People rooted for car brands as well as drivers, and car companies believed in the whole win on Sunday, sell on Monday mantra. Just ten years later, there were 13 such eventsnearly half the schedule. In the early 2000s, NASCAR was soaring. The one thing, though, that all those racing drivers had in common Petty, Pearson, Parsons, Bodine, Waltrip, Earnhardt, Wallace and the rest is that they all started racing on local tracks and created reputations for themselves as hard chargers who were winners. Many former fans consider this state of affairs to be ridiculous. The drops: 10% in one year, 19% in two years, 38% in three years, and, good golly Miss Molly, 51% since 2015, when NBC picked up the second half of the season in a giant 10-year contract, with Fox doing the first half. Meaning that in todays world even the smallest increase in a TV rating is a really big deal when considering how overall viewership is measured. Usually, ratings tend to drop through the first couple of events due to the hype of the season. There's a catch, though. The drops: 10% in one year, 19% in two years, 38% in three years, and, good golly Miss Molly, 51% since 2015, when NBC picked up the second half of the season in a giant 10-year contract, with Fox. NASCAR averaged 4.570 million viewers for Sunday afternoons event at Auto Club Speedway. Top Ten motorsport stories: Abu Dhabi, Larson, COVID 2022 Land Rover Range Rover looks gorgeous, The government of Canada is harassing its citizens, William Davis: a Liberal in Conservative clothing, Trying to create a story where there is no story, Dubas will dump Tavares to make Rielly captain, Canadian racings crown jewel, Jukasa Motor (nee Cayuga) Speedway is closed down, I have my critics but Page, McReynolds top the list, What my grandchildren think Santa would drive (if he had a car), The markets shifting to EVs and that explains Fords flip-flop, Lets use public embarrassment as a way to curb drinking and driving. In 2019, that number had dropped to just 2.92 million. No longer could a late-model driver from Syracuse or Spokane get a car and a team together and show up to try to qualify for any of NASCARs races. There are still plenty of obscene profit breaks, but its far less aggravating when you can still see the action and leader board on part of the screen. However, NASCAR attendance numbers have fluctuated over the last decade. It was blatant condescension towards what was arguably the most loyal fanbase in sports. ), and a race at the concrete venue of Nashville for the first time. And forget Danica the non-stop promotion and ass-kissing of all things NASCAR by the announcers seriously, compare them against broadcasters of any other big-league sport has people who were once fans changing the channel permanently. Social impressions, social following, a positive buzz of our sport, which is measured by third parties, like at YouGov is up 2.5 X over the course of the last two to three years.. Yes, NASCAR actually believed an artificial points reset after two thirds of the season was the move that was going to catapult them past the NFL. 4 million viewers in. You also dont often see post-race fisticuffs after races at Kansas or Vegas like you might at Martinsville or Bristol. The half-mile dirt track was a success on many levels. TV ratings for the Richmond race were said to be down 12% from the same race in 2015 and 44% from 2014. . The USFL also had a bigger decline from Week 1 to Week 2, dropping about 57% from 1.57 million. Schedule/Results. So here are three actual reasons for the decline of NASCAR. NASCARs 2020 champion is also its most popular driverfor the first time since 1988. . Compared to last years fourth race of the season, Phoenix, ratings fell a tick (from 2.7) and viewership 5% (from 4.58M). In 1994, there were six events held at intermediate tracks of 1.5-2 miles in length. He pointed out that despite the ratings decline, NASCAR achieved a "double-digit share increase" last year. Thats exactly what NASCAR did when they took the Labor Day race out of Darlington and sent it to Auto Club Speedway in California. Kyle Busch, NASCARs black hat, won his second title. Since early in the millenium, however, interest in NASCAR both at the speedways and on television has dropped off. 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